It appears the status quo may be finally making its moves to getting control over the heretofore free and open internet. As I and many others have noted previously, the internet is one of the most powerful tools humanity has ever devised. It frees information in a way that was simply unimaginable decades ago and empowers each of us to be as informed or uninformed as we desire.

Just last week in my post, Say Goodbye to “Net Neutrality” – New FCC Proposal Will Permit Discrimination of Web Content, I mused that in so-called “first world” countries like the U.S. the illusion of freedom must be maintained even as civil liberties are eroded. Thus censorship must be administered surreptitiously and slowly. The following plan to implement an “Internet ID” will initially only be rolled out as a pilot program in two states (Michigan and Pennsylvania), and will only deal with government services. That said, we can see where all of this is ultimately headed, and the program, called the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, should be monitored closely going forward.

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) is lending his voice to a campaign aimed at holding President Obama accountable to a pledge he made during his 2008 campaign to uphold net neutrality.

On Wednesday, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee launched a video featuring Franken calling for stronger net neutrality protections than those currently being floated by the Obama administration.

The site debuted earlier this month to protest a proposal from Federal Communications Chairman (FCC) Tom Wheeler to allow Internet providers to charge content companies for better access

That plan has drawn ire from net neutrality advocates, who say it goes against the agency’s original rules, which kept Internet providers from blocking or slowing access to certain websites before they were struck down by a federal court earlier this year.

Despite assurances from Wheeler that his new net neutrality plans would not allow Internet providers to make arrangements that hurt competition or consumers, critics say allowing these online "fast lanes" will create an unlevel playing field on the Internet.

The Internet has emerged as the most empowering tool of individual freedom since the Gutenberg’s press, affording billions of people worldwide not only the tool of instant communication, but access to a wealth of liberating information, freedom from the chains of received consensus, and the opportunity to become their own media platform.

This represents an ever increasing threat to the status quo of the elite, which is why the establishment is working feverishly to dismantle the freedom granted by the world wide web in its current form.

1) The Death of Net Neutrality

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently gave the green light for large Internet Service Providers to create a two-tier Internet system which would allow large corporations to buy up dedicated faster bandwidth, ending net neutrality and potentially leaving smaller websites in the dust.

If passed this will allow the “televization” of the Internet, resulting in large companies forming monopolies and restricting consumer choice.

“Smaller companies that can’t afford to pay for faster delivery would likely face additional obstacles against bigger rivals. And consumers could see a trickle-down effect of higher prices as Web sites try to pass along new costs of doing business with Internet service providers,” reports the Washington Post.

For almost a decade, we have warned of plans to create an ‘Internet 2′ under which the old Internet would be left to crumble and die, eviscerating the world wide web as a tool of free speech that allows independent voices to be heard amongst the cacophony of corporate and statist propaganda.

2) Intelligence Agencies are Manipulating the Internet With Deliberate Disinformation

Documents recently released by whistleblower Edward Snowden confirm that western intelligence agencies are deliberately flooding the web with disinformation in order to, “inject all sorts of false material onto the internet in order to destroy the reputation of its targets.”

These techniques are intended to “control, infiltrate, manipulate, and warp online discourse,” which has the effect of, “compromising the integrity of the internet itself,” according to journalist Glenn Greenwald.

Once again, why is it that -- despite being supposed "opposites" -- both Obama Democrats and Tea Party Republicans seem united in their desire to never even mention, let alone aggressively promote, the Internet Freedom Preservation Act?

Non-Conformity & Creativity Now Listed As A Mental Illness By Psychiatrists

April 7, 2014 – It’s no secret that when society, as a whole starts thinking outside the box, or starts to question what’s really happening on the planet it faces a fierce opposition. It’s also secret that authority figures throughout history have ridiculed ideas that simply did not fit the frame.

In our not so distant past, new ideas and understandings were harshly opposed by those in control. A great example is Galileo, who was convicted (and worked banned) from the public domain, and labelled as crazy. Scientists during this time were also sought after and killed. Have things really changed today? Is the pharmaceutical industry another means of condemning and altering those who think outside the box?

“The nail that sticks up will be hammered down.” – Japanese Proverb

Is nonconformity and freethinking a mental illness? According to the latest addition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, it looks that way. The manual identifies a mental illness labelled as “oppositional defiant disorder, or ODD. It’s defined as an “ongoing pattern of disobedient, hostile and defiant behavior.” (0) It’s also included in the category of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

The manual is used by psychiatrists to diagnose mental illnesses, and it seems that with each new issue a new, made up mental illness is added to the list. This isn’t something new, in the Soviet Union, a systematic political abuse of psychiatry took place and was based on the interpretation of political dissent as a psychiatric problem. Mental illness has been used for political repression, those who were/are non-conformant and do/did not accept the beliefs of authority figures (like government agencies) face labels that do not represent them at all, and have no scientific backing what so ever. (1)

“On the first glance, political abuse of psychiatry appears to represent a straightforward and uncomplicated story: the deployment of medicine as an instrument of repression. Psychiatric incarceration of mentally healthy people is uniformly understood to be a particularly pernicious form of repression, because it uses the powerful modalities of medicine as tools of punishment, and it compounds a deep affront to human rights with deception and fraud. Doctors who allow themselves to be used in this way betray the trust of society and breach their most basic ethical obligations as professionals.” (1)

The entire psychiatric disease model today is based on the theory that a brain-based, chemical imbalance causes mental illness. Dr. Mark Graff, Chair of Public Affairs of the American Psychiatric Association said that this theory was “probably drug industry derived.” (source)

“There’s no biological imbalance. When people come to me and they say, I have a biological imbalance, I say, ‘show me your lab tests.’ There are no lab tests. So what’s the biochemical imbalance?” - Dr. Ron Leifer, New York psychiatrist (source)

“If a psychiatrist says you have a shortage of a chemical, ask for a blood test and watch the psychiatrist’s reaction. The number of people who believe that scientists have proven that depressed people have low serotonin is a glorious testament to the power of marketing.” - Jonathan Leo, associate professor of anatomy at Western University of Health Sciences. (source)

It’s quite shocking how medicine is convinced that the origins of mental illnesses are to be found in biology, when over three decades of research have not been able to provide any proof. There are no tests available for assessing the chemical status of a living person’s brain. Many psychiatric ‘disorders’ aren’t even real, we’ve just been convinced that they are. This is done to keep society in check, make money, and one method of controlling the masses to prevent them from thinking outside the box.

As an end note, if you’re interested you might want to check out a documentary titled Generation RX. It’s a documentary by a world renowned producer Kevin P. Miller. In the film he examines the rise in psychiatric diagnoses’ among children and teens. The film includes a number of experts, doctors, and researchers that are internationally respected in the fields of medicine, ethics, journalism and academia. He emphasizes that a lack of ethics goes hand in hand with psychiatric drugs that are prescribed to millions worldwide, yet have never been proven safe and effective for the very conditions they are purported to treat. He also uncovers a pattern of collusion between drug manufactures are the FDA, who literally hide evidence about the detrimental effects psychiatric drugs can have on a person.